to be managed without control or responsibility, there would be no safety for the constituted authorities of the States and Nation. They would be liable, at any time, to be undermined and overthrown by agencies under their own eyes. There is equal wisdom in prohibiting such combinations altogether; for there is no demand, there can be no lawful occasion, for them in such a government as ours, where the people can always move, without let or hinderance, directly, towards the objects they desire, or which the majority desire, under the prescribed forms of the Constitution and laws. If it were allowable for the people to depart from these forms in one instance, they might do it in another; if in one degree, they might extend it at their own option; and there would be no end to it. Sedition and treason, in that case, would be authorised by law. But, most happily, the Constitutional law of this land has been minutely scrupulous in prohibiting all permanent political organizations, which are not created by itself, as parts of one great political fabric, asserting sole empire over its own jurisdiction. We say, in prohibiting them, as we have before shown, that the license given is equally a law of prohibition for all that is not licensed.

This wisdom is moreover apparent from the consideration, that by adhering to these forms, there is always a balance of influence against any attempts to injure, or impair, or overthrow the Government, Constitution, and laws of the land, or to surprise the public by the advantages acquired by political combinations of a permanent and organized character. The freedom of speech guaranteed to one citizen, is guaranteed to all. Hence, the private influence of one man on one side, is balanced by that of another on the other side, of the same question; and between the two, the chances are in favour of the right. The same remark applies to the influence of the press: there is always a balance of power, operating on the public, so long as the forms of the Constitution are observed. In the same manner, popular assemblies of one party and the other, so long as they keep within the Constitutional license, neutralize each other, in all their inordinate excesses, and afford a chance for the right to prevail. Whenever a petition, or address, or remonstrance is preferred to Government, in regard to which there is a difference of opinion, its undue influence will be counteracted by another. And so a salutary balance of power is maintained in all the Constitutional modes of political action.

But the moment the Constitutional license is transcended, as in the case of the American Anti-Slavery Society, this healthful balance of power is lost. Such an unconstitutional organization steals a march upon the public, and by the amazing power of its vast political machinery, assails the Constitution and laws of the country, with no rival influence to counteract it. While the rest of the people keep within the laws, this combination has transcended them, and occupies the field of its usurpation alone. There is no balance of influence any where, that can lawfully be employed, except in the strong arm of authority. The public, the Government, the world, have been taken by surprise. Here is an immense and powerful combination, that has suddenly leaped from the sphere of the religious world, brought with it a machinery which was manufactured in that sphere, seized upon affairs of State, usurped the business of State, and neither the public, nor the Government, seem yet to know which end, or how, head or tail, to take hold of the monster. It comes in shapes unknown, unrecognized before, and has pounced upon the political fabric of the nation, with an apparent determination to rend it asunder, and tear it down before the eyes of the world. Like as Satan, when he came with errand fatal to our race, from out Hell’s regions, and approached the gates that opened from that dark abyss, encountered and addressed his monster child, so the Government, not less amazed, seems also to say to this unexpected Apparition: